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Arsène Wenger has been the target of vile chants for more than a decade – it's time the authorities cracked down on the culprits
Arsène Wenger at Old Trafford last Saturday. Photograph: Getty Images
What is to be done about the Arsène Wenger paedophile chant, beloved of knuckle-dragging cretins who imagine that baying it at the Arsenal manager constitutes making some kind of point? One is always loth to write off a policy before it has been given time to take effect, yet even though the Arsenal manager has only endured this one for 13 years, perhaps it is pertinent to inquire whether the police and the Football Association's strategy of doing precisely nothing can really be said to be making any inroads.
Unless you suffer from a selective deafness that could rival the selective myopia that Wenger himself has long conquered, you will be aware that the chant reared its hideous head last Saturday at Old Trafford, during Arsenal's loss to Manchester United. It wasn't the most novel thing to occur in the crowd during the game. For my money, Wenger's arms-outstretched foray into the stands was quite majestic, despite being vaguely reminiscent of Leonardo DiCaprio's cringe-making "I'm king of the world!" moment in Titanic. Yet of course there will be others who found it pathetic.
But the one thing we ought to be able to agree on is the utter repulsiveness of that chant, which is by no means diminished by people citing Munich chants or gas chamber chants as though the existence of other horrors somehow means it all evens out in the end. Our business here is with the Wenger chant, and what can be done about it, but by extension all other such odious chants, which only the cowardly and defeatist could accept as just one of those things.
Needless to say, the FA declined to return repeated calls on the matter, presumably having far more important things to do than discuss the vile abuse of a manager over more than a decade. What were those urgent things? Well, I note they squeezed out a press release announcing Rafa Benítez had been charged with improper conduct for comments made after the Spurs game a couple of weeks ago. So we can only guess at the sabre-toothed nature of plans to combat this blight, that they are even now not really being arsed to come up with.
Some argue that the leadership should come from managers. When Mido was abused by sections of the West Ham fans a few years back, the club's then manager, Alan Pardew, condemned it immediately. "It's never nice and I don't approve of it," he said. "I apologise. It's very difficult because it goes on in most games. But that doesn't mean to say we accept it."
Such straight-up denunciations are a rarity, alas, though one can dream of more progressive times, where players and managers would make a point of condemning the vilest excesses of supporters in the strongest possible terms in their post-match interviews.
That Sir Alex Ferguson opted to stay silent on Saturday is a shame, but he did address the issue last year, decrying United supporters who abused Wenger, adding that "the police should be doing more".
What then of the police, who have power vested in them by the 1991 Football Offences Act? Several Spurs fans who abused Sol Campbell at Portsmouth last September have been convicted this year, but Greater Manchester police have no record of any complaint being made by a member of the public on Saturday. Should they wish to act on their own initiative, they may care to start with the online vendors selling a downloadable version of the chant, presumably for people who don't have enough scumbag friends to sing along with them.
Interestingly, the most striking progress has been made by individual supporters. Two years ago, three Arsenal season ticket holders – a Jew, a Muslim and a Christian, should it matter – sued their own club for the antisemitic chants they repeatedly heard at the Emirates, arguing that it amounted to a breach of the Race Relations Act. They maintained that since Arsenal had a written policy of taking firm action on racist behaviour in the ground, the club were in breach of contract.
Yesterday their lawyer Lawrence Davies confirmed that as a direct result of their action, Arsenal agreed to install a replica scheme to that which was already in place at Tottenham, whereby supporters could text anonymously if someone nearby them was spewing such chants.
Must enterprising or crusading individuals fill the vacuum left by the various authorities? The latter appear to have decided that chants like the Wenger one are a mere fact of life, so at present, depressingly, it would seem so.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/b...-chant-arsenal
Arsène Wenger at Old Trafford last Saturday. Photograph: Getty Images
What is to be done about the Arsène Wenger paedophile chant, beloved of knuckle-dragging cretins who imagine that baying it at the Arsenal manager constitutes making some kind of point? One is always loth to write off a policy before it has been given time to take effect, yet even though the Arsenal manager has only endured this one for 13 years, perhaps it is pertinent to inquire whether the police and the Football Association's strategy of doing precisely nothing can really be said to be making any inroads.
Unless you suffer from a selective deafness that could rival the selective myopia that Wenger himself has long conquered, you will be aware that the chant reared its hideous head last Saturday at Old Trafford, during Arsenal's loss to Manchester United. It wasn't the most novel thing to occur in the crowd during the game. For my money, Wenger's arms-outstretched foray into the stands was quite majestic, despite being vaguely reminiscent of Leonardo DiCaprio's cringe-making "I'm king of the world!" moment in Titanic. Yet of course there will be others who found it pathetic.
But the one thing we ought to be able to agree on is the utter repulsiveness of that chant, which is by no means diminished by people citing Munich chants or gas chamber chants as though the existence of other horrors somehow means it all evens out in the end. Our business here is with the Wenger chant, and what can be done about it, but by extension all other such odious chants, which only the cowardly and defeatist could accept as just one of those things.
Needless to say, the FA declined to return repeated calls on the matter, presumably having far more important things to do than discuss the vile abuse of a manager over more than a decade. What were those urgent things? Well, I note they squeezed out a press release announcing Rafa Benítez had been charged with improper conduct for comments made after the Spurs game a couple of weeks ago. So we can only guess at the sabre-toothed nature of plans to combat this blight, that they are even now not really being arsed to come up with.
Some argue that the leadership should come from managers. When Mido was abused by sections of the West Ham fans a few years back, the club's then manager, Alan Pardew, condemned it immediately. "It's never nice and I don't approve of it," he said. "I apologise. It's very difficult because it goes on in most games. But that doesn't mean to say we accept it."
Such straight-up denunciations are a rarity, alas, though one can dream of more progressive times, where players and managers would make a point of condemning the vilest excesses of supporters in the strongest possible terms in their post-match interviews.
That Sir Alex Ferguson opted to stay silent on Saturday is a shame, but he did address the issue last year, decrying United supporters who abused Wenger, adding that "the police should be doing more".
What then of the police, who have power vested in them by the 1991 Football Offences Act? Several Spurs fans who abused Sol Campbell at Portsmouth last September have been convicted this year, but Greater Manchester police have no record of any complaint being made by a member of the public on Saturday. Should they wish to act on their own initiative, they may care to start with the online vendors selling a downloadable version of the chant, presumably for people who don't have enough scumbag friends to sing along with them.
Interestingly, the most striking progress has been made by individual supporters. Two years ago, three Arsenal season ticket holders – a Jew, a Muslim and a Christian, should it matter – sued their own club for the antisemitic chants they repeatedly heard at the Emirates, arguing that it amounted to a breach of the Race Relations Act. They maintained that since Arsenal had a written policy of taking firm action on racist behaviour in the ground, the club were in breach of contract.
Yesterday their lawyer Lawrence Davies confirmed that as a direct result of their action, Arsenal agreed to install a replica scheme to that which was already in place at Tottenham, whereby supporters could text anonymously if someone nearby them was spewing such chants.
Must enterprising or crusading individuals fill the vacuum left by the various authorities? The latter appear to have decided that chants like the Wenger one are a mere fact of life, so at present, depressingly, it would seem so.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/b...-chant-arsenal
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